Using Inspiration and Making It Your Own! | Series- Part 1 Altenew Anemone Flowers

Hello and welcome back!

Today I have Part 1 in a series of episodes where I will share my tips and techniques on how to turn inspiration images or cards into a unique card of your own. I'm constantly looking for new ideas for cards and that means lots of Pinterest searching and watching crafty videos. But once I find what I like, I find that it's so hard to not just copy the idea; I love the look but I want to make it mine. So keep reading along if you would like to see how I do this or you can go ahead and click the YouTube video below.

So the card inspiration I chose to use was one from Jennifer McGuire Ink. I watch a lot of her videos and it was actually her and her videos which inspired me to start crafting cards about 5 years ago. I chose an older card she made that used spotlight stamping and the Altenew BAF Rose stamp set. Her video is linked below if you are interested. (I would like to just express that I do not know Jennifer McGuire but I do like to give credit where it is due.)

So the first thing I did to make this card idea my own was to

1) Change the main/focal flower or image

In my card, I chose to use the Altenew CAF Anemone Layering Die Set as my focal point flower. I used my dies to cut out all of the floral and leafy layers using white cardstock. I then coloured the cardstock using my Altenew Ink pads using the Tea Party set for the florals and the Green Meadows for the leaves. I assembled my 2 Anemone flowers and 2 leaf fronds with Artist-tac dry adhesive. In doing this, I also used 2 more tricks to make this card my own...

2) Change the medium (I used a die cut as my focal floral versus a stamped image)

3) Change the colour scheme ( I chose to use coral colours versus the blues, greens or reds Jennifer did)

I then cut out my card front using white neenah exact 90lb cardstock and I chose to make my card a 4-1/4" x 9" slimline card. And I'm going to chose to make my card landscape orientation and top folding. Again these are 2 more ways to make this card my own...

4) Change they size/type of card ( A2, A4, slimeline, square, etc.)

5) Change the orientation of card (portrait or landscape, top-folding or side-folding)

I then arranged my floral die cuts on my slimline landscape cardstock in the manner I liked, and I picked it up using Press N Seal. I then connected my florals with some tape to create on but floral piece that I have ready to put on my card when my background is done. I then used the lightest colour of the Altenew Tea Party and Green Meadows ink sets (Pink Pearl and Minty Mint) to create my background using Jennifer McGuire's spotlight stamping technique and fussy cut Inkadinkado stamp masks. I chose to use the Altenew Hope stamp set ( I can't find this one in the shop - looks like it may be discontinued) which features a flower that I think is an anemone and thought would couple well with the Anemone layered flower. Get ready for another trick..

6) Tweak the technique as you desire

In Jennifer's card, she uses second generation stamping to create her background, while I used first generation stamping and the lightest ink to make a background that is still muted in colour compared to the focal point, but is a bit more vibrant. Technique and process videos are there as guidelines but art is about exploring and when you tweak already used methods, you make them your own, which is always fun!

I used The Altenew Blooming Bouquet stamp set to stamp out some little dots of varying sizes all over the open spaces of the card background. Jennifer used an alcohol marker to make the dots in her card, and as you can guess this is another way of tweaking the technique used.

The next thing I did was my sentiment, which coincidentally is another trick...

7) Change your sentiment

I chose to die cut my sentiment "beautiful" using the C9 Botanicals Turnabout dies from Sizzix Rose Gold Glitter cardstock. After affixing my floral focal die piece to the right side of my card front using BearlyArt Glue, I adhered the "beautiful" die cut to the left. I then finished off the sentiment with the "Have A" and "Birthday" stamps from the same C9 Botanicals Turnabout stamp set. This is another trick that can really make a huge difference...

8) Change the positioning of the focal point and/or sentiments

I then finished off the front with some Rose Gold LolliBeads and some Rosewater Nuvo Jewel Drops.

One of the biggest things you can do to make your card your own is to ..

9) DECORATE THE INSIDE!

I chose to use the Altenew Hope Stamp set and continue the spotlight stamping on the inside left portion of the card with the same colours. This time I stamped the Hope Anemone flower like Jennifer did.

Finally, I stamped out my sentiments from the Altenew Say It With Love and Dotted Blooms stamp sets in VersaFine Clair Nocturne Ink and Altenew Coral Bliss ink. And of course I adhered my card front to my card base.

So with these 8 tips you can definitely take any card as inspiration, use it's techniques and these here to make a unique card of your own, that looks different and is not an exact copy. You can use one or a few and mix and match these tips to create any desired card. Below you can see the two cards side by side. They do not look the same, but similar, which is what we are going for here.

I hope this post was helpful and I hope to have more of these posts/episodes for this series, to show how simple these tips and tricks really are to use. Please feel free to leave a comment; I would love to hear from you!